General Information:
Release Date: Q4 2014
Price Point: $75-100 (Depending on retailer)
Retailer: Million Publishing
Accessories: Blasters x 2, Rotor (for Shūta)
Profile Translation by Goktimus Prime
Autobot Godmaster Jr. Second Area Army Commander GO SHOOTER
Go Shooter is a new generation of Transformer whose life was bestowed by the Earthling Gō Shūta when his sentience was downloaded from the organic via the Masterforce system. After the Devil War on Earth, Go Shooter left Gō Shūta and went to G Nebula 89, in order to battle Overlord and defend the Transtector factory. Afterwards the young Autobot succeeded God Ginrai and Greatshot, becoming the third commander of the Autobots' Second Area Army. His experience in rescue during his time on Earth has made him aware of the importance of life, becoming a professional in combat and war, this leader of the next generations has grown into a worthy Autobot warrior. Just as Gō Shūta was skillful, Go Shooter has become proficient at football. Packaged with an annihilating photon generator which he uses to fight on the front line.
Rescue Commander Gō Shūta
Gō Shūta was once able to merge with his Transtector via the Masterforce System, allowing him to use the robot body to conduct rescues as a Headmaster Junior. At the end of the Devil War, Gō Shūta's Transtector downloaded his sentience, gaining its own Spark and becoming the autonomous robot life form, Go Shooter, who departed into space. After that, Gō Shūta supported the Autobots as a human, but then obtained a newly created small Transtector from Nebula G. With a new system endowed with the qualities of Masterforce and the Transtector, Gō Shūta provides Super Spirit (Chōkon) Power to his Transformer partner, becoming a new Godmaster Junior warrior. Having grown into a fine young man, Gō Shūta is reunited with Go Shooter; however still in a strange yet amazing combination with Go Shooter's own childhood identity.
Police Helicopter Mode
Gō Shūta harnesses the power of Heaven Super Spirit (Tenchōkon) to transform into a small hovering reconnaissance chopper. Becoming Go Shooter's eyes in the sky, Gō Shūta sends directives with precise performance as the two minds become one.
Plasma Power Rifle
Harnessing the power of Super Human Spirit (Jinchōkon), Gō Shūta's suit mode also grants him the ability to become a Targetmaster. Employing Heaven Super Spirit (Tenchōkon) energy in police chopper mode, this plasma power rifle mode becomes a gun that generates plasma via Earth Super Spirit (Chichōkon) energy.
In the late 80's the "Transformers" cartoon went off the air in the United States, but in Japan there continued to be new cartoons that were never aired in the U.S. One of these shows was known as "Masterforce". This series had a heavy focus on "Masters", be it Godmasters (aka Powermasters) or Headmasters, this show had a heavy leaning towards humans controlling Transformers technology (or acting as an extension of the Transformer really). One of these Transformers was "Go Shooter", whose partner "Shūta" was a young boy who was rave but sometimes impulsive. At the end of the series, the Transformers characters "regained' their bodies leaving their human allies behind. So what happened after that to these humans? In late 2014 fans got a small piece of the answer.
Over the past few years, Million Publishing has been releasing exclusive redecos of "Generations" figures as part of their "Generations" magazine devoted to the more collector-oriented Transformers toys. One of their most recent is Go Shooter, partnered once again with Shūta. However this time Shūta is a separate entity, donning an exo-suit that lets him transform into a weapon or a small helicopter. Go Shooter is a car once again, but not exactly the same emergency vehicle as his "Masterforce" incarnation.
In reality, Shūta is a redeco of Blazemaster, the Micromaster who came with Legends Bumblebee. The sculpt used for Go Shooter himself is the figure originally released as Deluxe Bumblebee, which was later retooled as Goldfire and then retooled again as Nightbeat. I do recommend checking out those previous reviews to get a good sense of the Go Shooter's base sculpt. The same goes for Blazemaster. This review will focus on the changes made to these figures for this release.
Shūta Review
Vehicle mode:
In the "Masterforce" series, Shūta's main colors were blue, yellow, black and white with a green visor over his eyes in his humanoid form. These colors were the inspiration for the deco on this version of the character. Most of the helicopter shows off blue with the rotors and some joints cast in yellow. You see a bit of black peeking through from the robot mode as well. All the windows on him are painted metallic green, a homage to his green visor. An Autobot symbol is painted in red on the top of the helicopter cockpit. If you want to draw the color analogies out, this Autobot symbol is perfectly placed because Shūta had an Autobot symbol on the top of his helmet in humanoid mode. Overall this color scheme is really impressive as it uses more deco points than any other version of the figure.
Transformation to Humanoid Mode:
- Swing the tail rotor section up.
- Swing the gun in the front of the vehicle up.
- Stand the figure up.
Humanoid Mode:
The "humanoid" mode impresses just as much as the vehicle mode. Most of the figure is cast in blue plastic, but there is a piece of yellow plastic that runs from the sides of the chest, over the shoulders and to the back. This yellow section is a call back to a similar pattern on Shūta's "Masterforce" armor. Taking things a step further, his thighs are painted silver and the lower legs are black, a homage to "Masterforce" Shūta's armor which had white (or light grey) thighs and black lower legs. Even the head has homage details. The visor eyes are painted metallic green and above them is a yellow line. Above that is a dark blue patch on the crest. All these details call back to the color design on "Masterforce" Shūta's helmet section. Indeed, the only detail that doesn't is the silver on the mouthplate. Like the vehicle mode, the detail on this form is stunning and truly a "premium" deco.
Transformation to Weapon Mode (from Vehicle Mode):
- Get a good grip on the top and bottom halves of the vehicle.
- Pull the top section up and swing it back.
- Push the rotor/tail section back.
- Swing the arms back.
- Swing the weapon handle down.
Weapon Mode:
While "Masterforce" Shūta was a Headmaster, this time he gets to be a Targetmaster! Since Shūta didn't have a weapon mode previously this is the least "homage" based form. However, the blue and yellow colors really stand out and reinforce the connection to his G1 counterpart. I also like the way a bit of silver from the thighs shows on the sides, adding a dash of "mechanical" color to this form.
Go Shooter Review
Vehicle Mode:
As someone who reviewed Deluxe Bumblebee, Goldfire and then Nightbeat and appreciated them all for their unique details, I was not ready for just how amazing this figure would look in this form. For the most part, vehicle modes have been a weak point for decos in recent years, often with details left out. The most common offenders for being unpainted are the rear window, rims and rear lights. The shame is this robs the opportunity for details to pop and instead they kind of get lost in a field of uniform color plastic. Not so here! Indeed, this deco seems to use almost the exact opposite philosophy, which is make sure you paint everything you can to get this homage right.
Like his G1 counterpart, Go Shooter is mostly cast in white plastic. His windshield and side windows are translucent blue plastic. His wheels are cast in black. If these sounds dull to you, worry not! These plastic colors merely serve as a canvas for the amazing deco. The call backs to G1 Go Shooter include:
The hood of the car has two black stripes running from the windshield to the front in the middle. Layered on top of that is a Police shield complete with the wings of a bird in gold on top of a red circle with a shield on top. This is a very intricate tampograph and looks amazing in its intricacy.
The grille on the vehicle has been painted black, similar to the G1 figure.
There is a silver strip on the top of the windshield with the word "Police" on top.
The doors are each painted black. On top of that are tampographs resembling a shield with the word "Police" on top and an Autobot symbol with a police badge "star" underneath it. Under that is a design that looks like a yellow ribbon with the word "Masterforce" inside of it. Like the tampograph on the hood this one is intricate and looks amazing.
Over the rear wheel wells are black lines with the world "Police" on top of them in white.
The details I mention above are already amazing, however there's much more to this figure in the deco department.
Since the Bumblebee/Goldfire/Nightbeat sculpt was not designed to be an emergency vehicle, the designers found a way to work in emergency "features" into the vehicle. The first is found on the headlights. Each headlight has a section that's painted silver and copper. However, on the right side there is a part painted red while on the left it's painted blue. The "fog lights" under them are painted in the same colors. This makes him look like he has emergency lights built into his headlights. That's not all! The small vent-like piece on top of the cabin section has been painted black on top and has a half blue and half red design in the front, again acting as "emergency lights" in the absence of a light bar. I love this creative solution to giving Go Shooter "emergency lights" even though his vehicle mode is really just a sports car.
Yes, there are a few more details to talk about! On top of the cabin section is the alphanumeric code "C-301". You will see this again on the back of the vehicle over the right side exhaust pipe. This is a reference to Go Shooter's toy. In Japan, the Transformers figures used to have "C" or "D" designations followed by a number ("C" for Cybertron and "D" for Destron). Go Shooter's G1 designation was C-301 and this is a direct call back to that. Finally, the sides of each wheel are painted silver, the rear lights are painted red with black bar between them. The exhaust pipes and the section between them are painted gunmetal grey completing an amazing deco!
Go Shooter includes the same weapons as the previous versions of this figure. The base of the weapons are cast in blue. The handles are black and the "flames" shooting out of them are translucent blue. Gunmetal grey paint is used on the edges of the barrels, giving them a premium appearance. Both weapons still attach together in case you want to put them on one side while Shūta is on the other in weapon mode.
Transformation to Robot Mode:
- Detach the weapons if attached.
- Swing the panels that form the rear of the vehicle down.
- Push the rear half of the vehicle down gently. Generally the legs will separate. Swing them out straight and swing the robot feet back and then out.
- Pull the sides of the car (holding on to the headlight sections) out to the sides, then swing them down.
- Push the middle/front section of the vehicle back and down.
- Push the chest/torso section down.
- Swing the headlight sections up so they are pointing forward.
- The weapons can all be attached to his fists or the 5mm pegs on the underside of his forearms.
Robot Mode:
In my Nightbeat review I went into depth about why the sculpt works so well for the character. I also talk about how you can swing the headlight section up and swing the doors down for him to have more of a traditional G1 style appearance. That goes double for Go Shooter, whose arms in the G1 series had a part of the car and the doors hanging on his arms and shoulders. Now, in the G1 series Go Shooter was a redeco of the Headmaster Siren, not Nightbeat, but their design aesthetics are very similar. They both have heads with antennae sticking up, the car front/doors on the arms and the flat torso section. The beauty of this is that it also makes the sculpt a great canvas for Go Shooter's deco!
From head to toe this figure has a lot of callbacks to the original Go Shooter figure and animation model. These details include:
- The head sculpt has translucent blue plastic used for the visor eyes, allowing for light piping. Go Shooter also had blue eyes in the series.
- The head features black paint on the antennae, silver on the face and a combination of blue and yellow outlining the face and eyes. All these colors are directly taken from Go Shooter.
- The torso has blue paint on the sides. This is meant to help simulate the look of Go Shooter who had a white panel in the middle of his chest. With the white plastic in the middle left unpainted it looks like he has a similar panel.
- The center of the chest has a blue square with an Autobot symbol painted in it on top of silver.
- The edge of each forearm has a silver paint detail wrapping around it, calling back to Go Shooter's forearms which had the same detail.
- Each lower leg has black line details on them, similar to G1 Go Shooter. However on the G1 version those lines were vertical while they are horizontal here.
- The front of each foot is painted black.
While this form doesn't have quite the number of decos found on the vehicle mode, they do all come together nicely to form a proper homage to G1 Go Shooter. I honestly believe this is pretty much as close as you can get this sculpt to looking like Go Shooter without retooling and it looks fantastic.
All the joints on this figure are nice and tight. However, there is one area where it appears the tooling is not holding up as well as before: the forearms. Each forearm has a hole in the bottom that allows a weapon to be attached. Unfortunately these holes appear to be a bit too wide, so his weapons don't hold very well at all. Fortunately he can still hold them in his fists without a problem, but given that he now has an extra weapon with Shūta it would've been nice to have his hands free without issue.
Final Thoughts:
If it weren't for the forearm issue, I'd rate this figure as "highly recommended", but if you're going to pay anywhere from $75=90 for a Deluxe Class figure, you expect not to have any issues with the mold. That said, the deco on this figure is insanely well done and I am very happy with the toy overall. This is geared towards the more hardcore end of the collecting spectrum for sure thanks to its price and (relatively) obscure character choice, but if you're in that category I do recommend this figure.
